This is the follow up to the previous Lang Tengah dive trip post.
After two dives on the first day, we spent Saturday going underwater three times. The first dive in the morning was a deepish dive that bottomed out at close to 30 meters.
The visibility going down was excellent, but once we reached the bottom we literally couldn’t see anything past 3 meters, sometimes you’re lucky, other times you aren’t, and this is an example of the latter.
blue spotted stingray
However, even with the lackluster visibility, we did spot quite a few creatures at this dive site. A beautiful blue spotted stingray were found laying at the bottom, and there were juvenile bamboo sharks hiding in the reefs too. We also spotted a huge cuttle fish who wasn’t too thrill to see us, I did manage to snap a couple pictures of the undersea alien before it jetted off from us.
cuttle fish, not looking terribly happy
this is 1/3 of a bamboo shark hiding within the coral reef
We spent some 20 minutes at the bottom and another 15 minutes or so slowly ascending to the surface. The temperature at the bottom was a chilly 26 C, making it the coldest I’ve been (other than Aquaria KLCC)
underwater thugs wannabe
After brunch, we had another dive, and on this second site, we found what we were looking for – the magnificent leopard shark.
Leopard Shark at Lang Tengah
I’ve seen leopard shark while diving at Aquaria KLCC, but seeing a beautiful specimen in the wild is something else. Ed and I navigated slowly to the side of the resting leopard shark to take a closer position for photography, and just as we were settling down, Terence landed at the back of the shark, thus startled the creature, it took off..
Luckily I was able to snap a couple photos before it got away. Sharks are often more afraid of us than we are of them, and if we are to be able to see these beautiful creatures in the wild, do SAY NO TO SHARKS FIN.
leopard shark taking off
underwater photographer at work
The fifth dive of the trip turned out to be our final dive. Terence and I had initially planned to conduct a night dive at the house reef, but thunderstorm that started at around 6:30pm or so pretty much doomed whatever plan we had.
We took it easy on this dive, averaging only at around 14+ meters, with the maximum depth of less than 23 meters. The seascape was beautiful, and again there were plenty of clownfish to be toyed with.
the ever so photogenic clown fish in anemone
a fish that looks like coral, or coral that looks like a fish?
All the photos taken in this post were with the aid of the INON UWL & DOME unit. The ultra wide angle conversion allows me to get to the subject much closer, hence reducing the wastage of light from the external flash unit (I have a single unit of Sea & Sea YS-01).
For those who are unfamiliar with underwater photography, the deeper we go, the more red we lose (hence everything looks blue), and thus underwater flash comes very handy. However, flash units are expensive, and has limited range, a few feet further and all you see is blue again.
All this means that the closer you can get to the subject, the easier you can lit them up. To make matters trickier, water has an amplification factor of about 30%, hence the importance of wide angle lenses.
this would make a good aquarium backdrop
beautiful sea fan with them ikan bilis
I hope you enjoy the photos, hopefully there are more to come. What I really want now is another flash unit and some external arms get better pictures. We shall see. Expensive hobby, le sigh.
Can’t wait for the next compressed air escapade.
more photos at my flickr set, and for more posts on my diving trips, click here.
Just got back from Lang Tengah, plenty of underwater photos to process, some of them turned out quite well thanks to a loaner INON ultra wide angle dome unit.
Here a teaser picture:
a family of nemo at Lang Tengah (click pic for bigger version)
Clown fish (or better known as Nemo these days) is still one of my favorite subjects underwater, and Lang Tengah is home to many of them.
Proper travelog and more photos to be posted once I got them properly processed.
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Nudibranch is a type of shell-less mollusk (octopus is a mollusk too!) that dots the ocean, typically hanging at the rock wall, coral, or bottom of the sea. Also known as sea slugs, these creatures are pretty tiny, typically not larger than your pinky.
Nudis come in a huge variety of shapes and colors, but they usually have a recognizable head with a pair of antennas, and an naked gill like organ at the rear that looks almost like a flower. The colors act as a deterrence and/or camouflage, some nudis can somehow “move” venoms from their prey to the outer part of their body to make themselves toxic to their potential predators. Fascinating stuff.
Tenggol island was partly made famous by the abundance of nudibranchs, and in my last trip (31st April to 2nd May) and over 8 dives, I’ve spotted at least 11 different types of nudis at dive sites around the main and surrounding islands.
The photos below are taken with my Canon S90, either with the miserable built in flash that’s half blocked by the underwater housing, or with natural light. Color temperatures are corrected, as with a bit of contrast adjustments.
I am dreaming a set of underwater strobes, but those toys are pricey….
Phyllidia varicosa
Also referred to as the scrambled egg nudi, this one’s pretty big in size, almost 3-4 inches in length. I don’t know who came up with the name, but if you serve my scrambled egg in this color, I’m probably gonna reject it.
Flabellina exoptata
From the puplish base, white tips and the blue rings, this looks like a flabellina exoptata but I could be wrong.
black nembrotha something?
It took me better part of an hour to find out the name for this nudi, no luck. Anyone know?
Atagema intecta
Again, atagema intecta might not be the correct species name for this black nudi with tiny brown spots all over. With 3000 or so species of nudibranchs it’s quite a drag to find the correct name sometimes.
Chromodoris coi
The white and grey nudi with black outline’s just lovely.
Phyllidia coelestis
The first time I spotted this lovely blue and black nudi with yellow spikes and tentacles.
Chromodoris magnifica
This one’s also called the stripped pajama nudi, not hard to see why. But does anyone seriously still have pajamas of this yellow, white, and black color scheme?
1. Phyllidia pustulosa 2. Nembrotha kubaryana
3. Pteraeolidia ianthina 4. Hypselodoris bullocki
These few are the more common ones around Tenggol, with Pteraeolidia especially plentiful. In the last dive I could spot at least a dozen of them within 10 meters in diameter.
Almost 3 weeks after my diving trip to Mabul and Sipadan, I’ve finally sorta figured out how to do simple editing with iMovie. Below are two videos compiled from multiple shootings both under and above water with my canon S90 compact camera.
The above video are edited from multiple dives at Kapalai and Sipadan where we encountered many turtles, grouper, huge ball of jackfish, sharks, and even a little pygmy seahorse. What you can hear from the video was exactly all one can hear while diving. Bubbles and the sound of you sucking that air via regulator, ahh.. tranquility.
This is making me miss diving again!
As mentioned in this post titled Mabul and Kapalai under 18 meters of water, we had an awesome party at Uncle Chang’s dive lodge in Mabul on the first night we stayed there. Now there’s the video evidence.
Irene, Jen, Lynn, Chan, and Gun were all awesome and made the trip that much better too. I can’t wait to go back there again!
